Electrical Phenomena on Fully Airborne Vertical Electric Antennas in Extreme Weather Conditions

This is a conference extension of the paper ‘Investigation on the mature storm cloud’s electric field using long airborne antennas’. The use of vertical antennas (including the VEDs—Vertical Electric Dipoles), lifted up by aerostats to high altitudes without being anchored to the ground, presents nu...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Energies (Basel) 2023-01, Vol.16 (1), p.52
Main Authors: Miś, Tomasz Aleksander, Modelski, Józef
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
airborne
Altitude
Antennas
Antennas (Electronics)
Atmospheric electricity
balloon
cloud
Clouds
Conductors
Electric corona
Electric dipoles
Electric field strength
Electric fields
Electrical phenomena
Electrification
Environmental aspects
Experimental data
Experiments
Extreme weather
Flashover
High altitude
Radiation
storm
Storms
Transmitters
VED
VLF
Weather
Wire
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This is a conference extension of the paper ‘Investigation on the mature storm cloud’s electric field using long airborne antennas’. The use of vertical antennas (including the VEDs—Vertical Electric Dipoles), lifted up by aerostats to high altitudes without being anchored to the ground, presents numerous advantages in comparison with large terrestrial VLF (Very Low Frequency) antenna structures. A slow-moving floating-earth conductor—a vertical wire antenna—is subjected to intense electrification mechanisms in the atmosphere and inside the cloud layers, producing additional risks for the transmitter and the flight train itself. The electrical potential achieved in this process is, therefore, compared with the flashover voltages over the antenna’s upper fixing point, defining the voltage margins at which the VLF transmitter is able to operate. The electrification processes are also compared to the model based on experimental data on the occurrence of corona discharges over a long, vertical wire traversing a storm cloud layer. The external electric field strength (around the antenna wire) is calculated and compared with older experimental data for storm clouds for various locations, showing the correctness of the proposed analytical electrification model, and, therefore, expanding it with the loss of the electric charge via corona.
ISSN:1996-1073
1996-1073
DOI:10.3390/en16010052